Ghost
by haltedtraveller
Summary: Ichigo sat in his room, powerless, unable to see ghosts, but still haunted. IchiRuki one-shot; inspired by and containing Emilie Autumn's poem "Ghost"


Ghost

Ichigo sat alone in his room, powerless. It was summer and he could hear the laughter of the children playing in the neighbourhood, the cicadas and the song of the birds. The sunset glowed in warm tones, painting everything in shades that matched the colour of his hair. Someone nearby was practicing the piano and the chords were reaching him, dull, distant and melancholic. Still, he felt half-deaf and half-blind, as if there was something that was hidden from him, something that he had always known and now that he was robbed of it, his mind went in overdrive, trying to fill the void.

 _Did you know sometimes it frightens me  
when you say my name and I can't see you  
will you ever learn to materialize before you speak  
impetuous boy, if that's what you really are_

He could almost hear her quiet call, said with an exhale, he could almost see her soft lips form the narrow 'i's and the 'o' at the end that turned his name into a sigh and it made him abruptly turn around, hoping to see her standing behind him. A black spot in the sunset orange, she would laugh at the pained expression on his face and tease him for his concern, mockingly calling him a boy, even short and petite as she was. But in the end, she was right – she always was; he was 16 and she was 151. Not ten times older anymore though.

 _how many centuries since you've climbed a balcony  
or do you do this every night with someone else_

Lying in bed at night, Ichigo always expected to see a black butterfly fly in through his bedroom window. He pondered over her past – he knew every important event in her life, her sorrows and her joys, but he was curious about her mundane everyday life. Had she ever entered someone else's room, chasing a hollow? Now or 40 years ago? Had someone noticed her before or he was the first one? The orange-haired boy smiled at the thought of being the first one to see her.

 _you tell me that you never leave  
and I am almost afraid to believe it_

Once he really did see a black swallowtail butterfly enter his room. He chased the poor insect around his room for an hour, almost bringing himself to tears and the creature to its death. Surely, it had to be her. What else could it be? She would never leave him. There was something both reassuring and frightful in this. It meant that Ichigo would never again be alone but it also emphasized the fact that she was essentially dead; the living always had to leave. And yet, despite her promise, he was alone now, sitting on the floor in the centre of his room, looking at his covered with butterfly's wings dust fingertips (he let the insect fly away, finding consolation in the thought that if it really was a hell's butterfly and it really was _her_ , she'd return) and wondered if she really would come back. Wasn't the promise of never leaving something too good to be true?

 _why is it me you've chosen to follow  
did you like the way I look when I am sleeping  
was my hair more fun to tangle  
are my dreams more entertaining_

When he dreamed, he dreamed of her, standing by his bed and watching him sleep. Those dreams were certainly strange for how could one dream that he is asleep and yet see his surroundings? Moreover, what if he somehow missed her? What if he could see her, standing in his room as real as a ghost could be (or a god for she was a god of death?) and he simply slept, his brain busy with flimsy scenarios. He would always wake up with his usually unruly hair full of tangles and cowlicks as if she really was there and made use of her free time by messing with him. She really liked taking advantage of the restraints of either his mind or his body, just like when she drew moustaches on his face while he was bound by her kido. Still, it would be better to let her have her time with his hair than to have her see what he dreamed of – how she finally comes back for him and they decide to go to the beach, except Byakuya is there and he and his adopted sister engage in building those ridiculous creatures out of sand. All he can do is stand there and laugh at them as he feels his IQ dropping, but careful not to enrage his brother-in-law (in law? what were those dreams again?) and end up chased by cherry blossoms that cut like steel.

 _do you laugh when I'm complaining that I'm all alone  
where were you when I searched the sea  
for a friend to talk to me_

Ichigo hoped she was not here to hear his complains, the way he repeated her name like a spell written in some long-dead language. He would hate to go back to his previous self, so isolated from the rest of the world with barely no friends. Couldn't she come into his life earlier and make the rain stop? Where was she now, when the clouds were slowly gathering on the horizon again? The others came to visit him but his wandering mind made him a poor companion, unsuitable for proper conversation for his eyes were always scanning his surroundings, searching for a familiar black shadow.

 _in a year where will you be_

June turned into July, then August, the air became heavier, sticking to the skin like a thin film of sweat, and the moisture made it difficult to breathe at noon, but summer was so cold without her. He dared not think what winter would be like, every snowflake, every piece of ice and every chill reminding him of her. Certainly cold as a grave. She would surely return by then. But what if she never comes back, not in a year and not in two? What if again she was keeping some terrible secret from him, protecting him? What if she dies in the meantime while he is sound asleep in his bed, dreaming of her, and in the morning he feels half his soul gone, dissolved into the Soul Society, leaving him nothing over which to mourn.

 _is it enough for you to steal into my mind  
filling up my page with music written in my hand  
you know I'll take the credit for I must have made you come to me somehow_

Even his father had noticed Ichigo's strange behaviour and watched him with a melancholy smile as he failed to draw a reaction out of his son. He always had paper on his desk and bed, stuffed in his pockets as his hand clutched that same pencil which grew shorter and shorter every night. Yet she was no more than a misty memory, almost a creation of his mind that left no traces, were it not for the rabbit faces he was finding drawn on corners of the pages of his old notebooks. Almost as if she had never existed (and she never had, truly, she had been born 150 years ago and had died as an infant) and yet everything in the world reminded him of her absence. Only if he could see her even for the blink of an eye, even as a hallucination, even though it would mean he finally went mad. Ichigo knew he was not the first, nor the last man haunted by a dead woman – countless poems and quotes echoed in his mind, whispered by his lips, so low no one could hear him. His soul was not only his own from the moment she pierced his very essence with her sword but now it seemed his mind was not his own also. His whole being was not only his own.

 _but please try to close the curtains when you leave at night  
or I'll have to find someone to stay and warm me_

Sometimes he woke at dawn when the summer air had not become strenuous to the lungs and found the window open wider that he had left it. He would jump up, sitting in his bed only in his pyjama bottoms and look around his room, forgetting about the cold that woke him and left gooseflesh upon his bare chest. His brain, still high on sleep, immediately flooded with thoughts that made him feel as if the world was ending and Aizen was still there and the wet feeling on his chest was blood. Blood was not that cold.

Her snow was.

 _would you miss me in a thousand years  
when you will dry another's tears_

But what if she indeed returns, only too late and he is driven mad with the thought of her, unable to recognize her? When he was falling asleep too fast, his body jerked up, afraid that he was never going to wake up and thus never see her again. Would she miss him, this boy she knew for some months in her life that was in its nature endless? Would she stop another's rain?

 _but you say you'll never leave me  
and I wonder if you'll have the decency  
to pass through my wall to the next room  
while I dress for dinner_

Kurosaki Ichigo once said he did not believe in things he could not see. Now he laughed at his statement for he had never in his life believed in something more than he believed in her existence. Beyond reason, really, for lately he could feel the strange glances full of pity of his family and friends. He was going mad or she was messing with his mind. The boy hoped it was the latter because it would mean she never left him. This thought made him blush furiously while he was dressing after a shower. The heat in his cheeks spread to his neck and chest as he fumbled through his clothes, trying to put them on while revealing as little skin as possible, overwhelmed by a sudden shyness.

 _it's too late not to interfere with my life  
you've already made me a most unsuitable wife  
for any man who wants to be the first his bride has slept with_

Ichigo vividly remembered this one instance when they were at Urahara's shop and he was wasting his time by bickering with Jinta in the way only two children could, while Rukia (there, he said her name, it was not that hard) was talking about some Seireitei business with the Sandal-hat. The word "marriage" reached his ears over his shouting and made him stop and look at her with his jaw hanging open. The elders were trying to find her a noble husband despite Byakuya's disapproval but apparently most have found her completely unsuitable.

"What? Isn't it true? You've already made me a most unsuitable wife for any man who wants to be the first his bride has shared a room with."

Ichigo just stared at her as the silence accompanying the murder of his dignity filled the room, interrupted only by the sound of Urahara spreading his fan to hide a chuckle.

 _and you can't just fly into people's bedrooms  
then expect them to calmly wave goodbye  
you've changed the course of history  
and didn't even try_

As if he was the warrior ghost that flied in men's bedrooms in the middle of the night like a succubus coming to haunt his dreams and take away his soul. As he watched her disappear from his sight, slowly fading into nothingness, she mocked his grief. Did she really expect he could calmly wave goodbye to the person that changed his world? She broke the rules of Soul Society without a single thought about herself, valuing his life, the life of mere (if seeing ghosts and being half-quincy, half-shinigami was ordinary) boy more than her own. She changed the whole world forever, not only his, and she never aimed to.

 _where are you now  
standing behind me  
taking my hand_

The thought of Rukia being beside him without him feeling her deeply unsettled Ichigo. She could be every sensation, every slight change in the temperature, every blow of the wind against his skin, every shade of black, every unexplained bruise on his body. He hated to think how her fingers would dissolve around him; how his flesh was too _earthly_ to bear her heavenly touch. He wondered if the tight feeling in his chest was her hand wrapped around his heart.

 _come and remind me  
who you are  
have you traveled far  
are you made of stardust too  
are the angels after you_

If only she would come and bring him peace of mind. Her presence calmed him like a quiet winter night. Like the sight of the moon peeking behind the clouds after hours of wretched darkness. Like a cold cloth against the forehead of a dying man, burning with fever. If only she would come, with his large hands he would cup the face that haunted him and stare into her bright eyes, trying to count the stars in them. Ichigo would pull her closer, close enough to have her scent of moonflowers and winter linger on his clothes for days, and he would never let her go, his nose buried in her hair as his hot tears silently fell (he was going to cry, he was sure of it, the weak man he was).

 _tell me what I am to do_

There were always times in which the emptiness got overwhelming, the purpose of his life unclear, when the invisible hand in his body moved from his heart to his neck and he prayed for mercy to whatever god there was, to _her_.

"Mercy," he begged, choking on his words, "have mercy. Let me see you. Kill me, if you must, and take me with you. Tell me what I am to do, but don't leave me here, where I can't find you!"

 _but until then I'll save your side of the bed_

Enough thinking for today. His eyes were bloodshot and dark circles were forming under them. He couldn't see her again today, he didn't see her, and the whirlwind inside of his head persisted. Ichigo made sure he didn't lock his door or window (so she could enter, not that it was a problem for any ghost) and lied down on his bed without even bothering to change his clothes; it did not matter anyway – he himself was unsure if he slept in his home clothes or walked around the house in his pyjamas. Lying on his side, on the edge of the bed, taking as little space as possible, he squeezed his eyes shut and hopelessly half-whispered, half-cried out, hoping she might hear him, wherever she was.

 _ **just come and sing me to sleep.**_


End file.
